A short meeting with the moon vehicle team followed me in hunt of clean A4 sheets. So, twenty minutes later, with my much-adored sling bag on my lap, the paper tucked under the bag, mp3 player in the right hand and armed with a ‘daily bus pass’, I set off through what I call the backyard of Yelahanka in an over-zealous, rickety blue BMTC bus. Dusty Chikkabettahalli, gravel, IAS compound, dogs in brittle and deep slumber, Radio One. The passengers bounced like ingredients of a tossed salad while giving in to the lull of a hot summer noon sans resistance. I was not exactly sure, but I guessed I was off to Peenya.
To me, the good-natured, non-fragrant, yuppie spots in the city’s Cantonment area have always proven to possess outstanding qualities required of a public space. In fact, they might even be as brilliantly public as a public space can possibly get. These spaces populate densely with the young and the cosmopolitan, who apart from truly being generous, come burdened with the pretext of being open and drawing from an ambiguous notion of progressive societies being more willing to share. This plays to the advantage of any person seeking ‘public participation’. In fact, in my experience, one nevers returns disappointed for these places are truly overwhelmingly giving. As there is no dirth of responses, I have found that it often tends to set in contemptuousness. A strong resolve had already begun to formulate in my mind as I boarded the mystery bus. Diversity.
I stepped out of the bus and got thrusted into this.
NH4, Peenya.
I began walking in the other direction, mildly alarmed yet unaffected by the chaos engulfing me. The blazing sun demanded a desperate stop for a bottle of water and an idle hand behind the counter prompted me to talk to him. I introduced myself and asked if he would be willing to help me with my project. He smiled and ran into the back room. Seconds later, he returned with a platoon of thuggish men, whom I can only presume to be ‘bakers’ employed at the bakery. The largest of the flabby arm began to interrogate me. I meekly concurred. He sniggered and looked around for an appreciative encore after getting to know about my project. He wasn’t disappointed. Then, as if I were a seat at the merry-go-round, they took turns to take my trip.
Peenya, in general, is supremely chaotic and industrious. Migrants from drier parts of the nation flock to industrial suburbs such as the one I was in. Work was taken extremely seriously. Although the conditions of those living there did not appear dire enough to suggest hand-to-mouth subsistence, there remained many more invisible mouths to fill. A lot of the employees here had been shyed away from education and it reflects glaringly in their projection of themselves. The sun seemed to be gently melting Peenya away. People were still too busy to care. Thankfully, I avoided attracting too much attention towards myself. I later realized that I could have been under the spotlight for several reasons – a camera that raised its much conspicuous head every once in a while only to realize the futility of my attempts to capture my subjects of observation, a virgin bottle of water, paper and pen, a perpetual searching glance and ,perhaps, the only person without an impending task at my hands!
My calm and sporting tolerance of the well-meaning goons at he bakery continued to shock me as I continued to look for a suitable area to begin my work in. The choice of a good location to begin work is, perhaps, the most crucial step one can engage in. The market swarming around the highway clearly would not be fruitful, largely owing to the distraction people’s work provided them. Besides, I needed them to be in a relatively receptive state of mind and many people around a chosen hub of activity. There was a tremendous amount of flux along the busy tents and ugly concrete-box shops.
My walk led me into a small lane just off the highway. It had shops, mostly, on the ground floor with houses above them. They seemed to be held together gently by clotheslines and electric, TV and telephone cables. Activity was muffled. Cool breeze blowing. Smell of lemon pickle was wafting through every counter. It was lunch time.
The remainder of time spent in this lane was of bipartisan nature – precarious yet fertile. This time of the afternoon, I noticed, sent owners home for food and a nap, in some cases. This left their employess available. The absence of their bosses also helped me to coax them to participate, if necessary, as they did not have anyone else to pass on their buck to. One of the commonly strong reactions I encountered was about their lack of education and their inability, thus, to do anything for me. This required a lot of time to be spent talking to them, making the tasks appear very simple, give details of the project to a varying degree or even start with little impromptu games to ease their minds. It met with fluctuating success. The absence of the bosses, however, also alarmed the employees as they got to know that utensils or saris that they had on offer were of little interest to me.
As I entered a jeweller’s shop, there was an employee behind the counter. His left ear was pierced with a stud commonly seen amongst Rajasthani men. Perfect. This meant he would understand Hindi. He looked fairly idle and chatting with a friend, which meant that his participation won’t endanger his bread earning. He turned out to be quite open to participate, in spite of the initial hesitation and ‘the boss will just come back’ and ‘ I didn’t study enough for this routine. Here is his response to the question:
What can see you see when you look up at the sky ? Time is not so important; be it day or night.
What can you see when you look up in the sky? D.S. Pawar
I had already committed a mistake here by using the word up. I reminded myself firmly to refrain from using suggestive words or body language such as a nod of the head or looking or pointing ‘upwards’ towards the sky. He spent a considerable amount of time talking about his inability to remember things he learnt at school; his struggle clearly reflected in his response. Firstly, he drew a landscape despite discussing the question with me a number of times and having clearly understood it. The establishment of the terrestrial elements is quite clear and heirarchically working his way ‘upwards’ – the swans swimming in the reservoir, the reservoir(although he has labelled it as a lake), the dam, the road, the river, originating from the mountains, much alike the sun, and finally, birds. No such effort seems to have been put into the establishment of the sky.It almost feels as if he were by the edge of the reservoir and looking ahead towards the horizon. But, does his clarity of terrestrial elements reflect the strength of his relationship to the ground or does his lack of knowledge or imagination about the sky heighten the emphasis on the former?
The next question I posed him was:
What is the shape of the environment?
What is the shape of the environment? D.S. Pawar
It was interesting to note that, again, he began by establishing the land and then moving on to show the different layers of the atmosphere (very fleetingly). He worked his way up from a helicopter to the ozone layer. And this, he said is where it ends.
“What comes after this?” I asked.
He smiled.
